Unicef in Southern Sudan

Mon Dec 08 2008 14:17:01 GMT+0000

A peace agreement signed in January 2005 ended decades of civil war between the Khartoum-based government and rebel fighters in Southern Sudan. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement established the Government of National Unity and a semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan. However, conflict still affects parts of Sudan [Photo: Jenn Warren/Unicef]

About 70 per cent of the town's houses were destroyed during the fighting, forcing inhabitants to flee. Infectious disease outbreaks, a lack of safe drinking water and malnutrition posed serious health threats to people displaced in cramped settlements and villages [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

When fighting erupted in Abyei between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement andthe Sudan Armed Forces in May of this year, nearly 60,000 people fled to displacement settlements in rural areas and nearby communities. Abyei was destroyed and looted by the SAF forces, and nearly led into full-scale war between the former warring parties who both lay claim to the oil rich area [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Before the recent violence, malnutrition was already a cause for concern in Abyei and the surrounding communities. The sudden migration of Abyei's residents strained resources in the host communities, including the nearby town of Agok [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Humanitarian relief in the wake of the crisis focused on food, emergency shelter, health and nutrition, safe water, sanitation and hygiene, personal security, and restoring education and livelihood. Unicef, WHO and the World Food Programme stepped in to provide assistance to thousands of people [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Unicef has installed emergency school tents for Abyei's displaced children, as student enrollment has almost doubled since the fighting broke out in May. Exercise books, blackboards and pens have also been distributed to the growing number of students [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Safe play spaces and child trauma programmes have also been set up by Unicef, hoping that children and teenagers can resume some of their normal daily activities [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

With the collaboration of the community-based organisation Wards (War Affected Rehabilitation and Development in Sudan), Unicef has also built water tanks and boreholes to provide clean drinking water [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Controlling health risks for people displaced by the conflict, and restoring basic health services for the returning population are priorities for government authorities, Unicef and other aid partners, who are supplying assistance to Abyei's displaced. There were a very limited number of health clinics in the region, even before the fighting destroyed Abyei's infrastructure and security [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Following the end of the rainy season, six months after the fighting in Abyei, people are slowly beginning to return home. The long rains last from May through to the end of October, flooding the area and making it impossible to move. The risk of returning in the dry season is that fighting can resume at any time, as soldiers can again move throughout the region. But families must go home with the support of the UN Mission in Sudan security forces guiding their way [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

The Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict is one of six that frame the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Abyei, Blue Nile State, and Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains are to hold a referendum in 2011 on whether to join South Sudan. During the war, the three areas fought alongside the SPLA. A pact signed in early June, the Abyei Road Map Agreement, is to stop violence in the town and encourage people to return home [Jenn Warren/Unicef]

Unicef and other NGOs must now shift focus back to Abyei, where people are returning to destroyed homes and no infrastructure. To avoid the conflict and assist the thousands of displaced people in Agok, many organisations had also set up temporary offices, and are now beginning to open their Abyei doors again [Jenn Warren/Unicef]